Map scale

[m10bob]

Andrew has been able to push the map to each hex being 40 miles, (as I understand it).

Does the game lend itself to being able to stretch any further, like maybe 20 mile hexes?

[JeffroK]

I would like to see WITP II at this sort of scale rather
 
The whole engine needs replacing and IMHO, we need something better at this scale than the current one.

[treespider]

What was the range of the main guns on the BB's? IMO you would need a whole new engine at that scale...for example you would need an engine for resolution of multi-hex naval combat.

[m10bob]

Both of you have raised great questions ref map scale.
Perhaps this is where a link might be made to the old SSI game "Fighting Steel", for those wishing to slug it out tactically?

[Terminus]

Yeah, good luck with that... Shouldn't take long to play at all...[:D][:'(]

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Yeah, good luck with that... Shouldn't take long to play at all...[:D][:'(]

Well...Yeah!..There is that![:D]

[wdolson]

If there is going to be a WitP II, it will most likely have an all new engine.  There are a number of people on the AE team who would like to create a new engine, but all the focus is on getting AE done (as it should be).

20 mile hexes would make the map database vastly larger than it is now.  Then there is also the problem of multi-hex naval combat.

Bill

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

Andrew has been able to push the map to each hex being 40 miles, (as I understand it).

Does the game lend itself to being able to stretch any further, like maybe 20 mile hexes?

I think 20 miles would be stretching it too far. 30 may be the maximum, but even that may be too much without a complete rewrite. Let's see how we do with 40...

Andrew

[Charbroiled]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

I would like to see WITP II at this sort of scale rather

The whole engine needs replacing and IMHO, we need something better at this scale than the current one.

I would like to see WITP II with a "google earth" type map with NO hex constraints.

[Terminus]

Good luck coding that.

[Charbroiled]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Good luck coding that.

Hey, if I'm going to dream about a WITP II, I might as well dream big.[:D]

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Charbroiled

ORIGINAL: JeffK

I would like to see WITP II at this sort of scale rather

The whole engine needs replacing and IMHO, we need something better at this scale than the current one.

I would like to see WITP II with a "google earth" type map with NO hex constraints.

Actually wasn't there a Civil War game by Empire Interactive and possibly iirc Rome:Total War that used a system wherein there were no hexes and a tactical battle was triggered when two opposing sides came within a certain distance of each other...No need for actually playing out the tactical battle by the player it could be resolved automatically - but such a system is possible.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: Charbroiled

ORIGINAL: JeffK

I would like to see WITP II at this sort of scale rather

The whole engine needs replacing and IMHO, we need something better at this scale than the current one.

I would like to see WITP II with a "google earth" type map with NO hex constraints.

Actually wasn't there a Civil War game by Empire Interactive and possibly iirc Rome:Total War that used a system wherein there were no hexes and a tactical battle was triggered when two opposing sides came within a certain distance of each other...No need for actually playing out the tactical battle by the player it could be resolved automatically - but such a system is possible.

We had a big "hex versus no hex" debate about three years ago when the Uber WITP team started meeting over on a different forum - the team that ultimately became the AE team.

Whether you want to call them "hexes" or not - you have to keep track of where things are. This could be done with "continuous coordinates" or "discrete coordinates" ... and ultimately any 2D system of "discrete coordinates" will probably be equivalent to a hex based system.

While many game systems may appear not to have hexes, underneath they mostly have discrete coordinates, specific places where units are, and with the ability to use those locations to calculate distance. In other words a discrete-metric-space. And the other point is scale. WITP has a LOT of units, and simplistic search algorithms must pretty much compare everything to everything when searching, if only to determine that the units are too far apart to even require a detection check. Making this a floating point calculation would not be likely to speed things up.

Also think about land units. Where exactly is a land unit? Well a division might cover a strangely shaped "blob" kind of area in 2-space. A division (in a continuous coordinate system) is not a point - it is one or more "blob" shaped thingys. So how to do searches to from this type of creature? Well technically from any point to any point!!! So now instead of one division, we have an area of infinitely many points (in theory) to check.

Any how - I think I still recommend a discrete coordinate system for any possible future game, whether we show "hexes" or not on the map.

[msaario]

Ha, my four cores would just love to calculate in three dee real time the exact position and movement of each ship, vehicle, bullet, shell, plane, palm tree, wave and soldier's bread bag(?)... One game day might take a month (or year) to resolve and the electric bill would be staggering...

--Mikko

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Charbroiled
I would like to see WITP II with a "google earth" type map with NO hex constraints.

Even Google Earth has an underlying coordinate system. You pretty much can't get away from them when working with electronic maps. The only thing you can do is hide it from the user.

I started out playing Avalon Hill board games. I actually like the hexes.

Bill

[Grotius]

I like hexes too.

[treespider]

I've grown to appreciate areas...more or less hexes - but better able to simulate avenues of approach and rough terrain.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: treespider

I've grown to appreciate areas...more or less hexes - but better able to simulate avenues of approach and rough terrain.

Areas are probably variable sized hexes ... or discrete points being a variable distance from their neighbors. I think there are two sub variants of area systems ... attack first then walk ... and first walk then attack ... both have their pros and cons.

The UV/WITP/WPO/AE system tends to try to emphasize non-abstraction of distance - hence at least in the current system - areas would be anathma.

Any new system needs to have a fundamental distance and fundamental time increment. These "sub-phase" or "pulse" times and distances can then be rolled up to higher levels for presentation to the players. So what players see as 20 miles point to point distances and 8 hour turns - might be resolved at distances of 5 miles and 1 hour pulses. But unless we go continuous coordinates - and/or time - then we must have an atomic scale for distance and time. And on the computer - you might as well always have an atomic scale - as there are limits to how small things can get.

[Dili]

How the Harpoon engine works? i guess they dont have hexes, certainly they have less units nor land ones where the hexes are almost 100%.
The issue is that land units have size and worse a variable one so hexes simplify that big problem.
But what a dream it would be a game in that you can do templates of various disposition of an unit, a bad one takes much more time to assemble or pack etc. That would be also great for army training.

[jwilkerson]

I talked to one of the Harpoon guys at Origins - unfortunately we didn't have time to get "down in the weeds" - but we did broach this topic - and I was a bit surprised as it sounded like he was saying Harpoon was discrete - I guess I shouldn't be surprised - as this seems like pretty much the only way to go to me - but my guess would've been that Harpoon was continuous. But for sure, Harpoon has less total units to keep track of than AE (or even WITP!).